What "Advocate's law" states about lawyer's ability to indulge in other financial activities.

 

Sarthak Chaturvedi - Advocate 

This year 2020, has been tough for most of us in some way or the other. Many people have had to fight the ever growing disease because of which a lot have lost their lives too. Multitudes of people lost their livelihood in the lockdown and had to travel hundreds of miles, back to their villages. While many can find and have found alternate ways of earning money to survive through this pandemic, but there is one segment of people which does not even have the right to find an alternate way of earning. And that segment is Advocates / Lawyers.

Rule 46 -49 of "Advocate Act" of the Bar Council of India made in 1961 prohibits any lawyer / advocate to earn by any other means but by law practise only. Up until 2001, there was an exception that could be made by the plea of the employer who might want the Advocate's service in any other service apart from law, but that exception was dismissed and ammended in 2001.

Now, only an advocate can make the plea to indulge in any other earning activity barring being a sleeping partner in a company. He / she can invest money in a company but not indulge in any kind of activities of the company to get an extra income or generate any kind of revenue and profit.

There have been many cases in the past when lawyers have appealed to the regulatory bodies to grant them exception provided their point is legitimate. And given the situations we are in, I think that all those pleas should be considered and examined for legitimacy.

On a positive note, the indian government recently announced that CA's , Doctors and Lawyers are also eligible to get loans for their proffesional services along with MSME's. There has been a long wait for some kind of credit support for lawyers amd finally our Finance Minister has announced this news recently which will financially benifit a lot of lawyers who are out of work because of the current situation.

Sarthak Chaturvedi

The author is a Lawyer at Supreme Court of India and a Partner at a leading law firm. The views expressed here are personal.

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